Transactions news-Page 4
What are crypto whale trackers and how do they work?
What are the common crypto whale tracking tools? Whale tracking tools like Whale Watchers, Whale Bot Alerts and others can help investors spot whale action and make quick and timely decisions. Whale tracking tools come with different capabilities, some can be just a simple window on top of a blockchain, while others have analytics and charting capabilities across multiple blockchains. Some only cover crypto whale tracking, while others offer NFT whale tracking too. Various analytics tools offer just simple analytics and notifications on whale activities, while others provide users with more comprehensive learning opportunities on charts and analytics. Some just …
Blockchain / Nov. 6, 2022
How to transfer $1 billion for basically free: Bitcoin whale watching
Billionaires, take note. It's one million times cheaper to send huge sums of money on the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain. A Bitcoin user sent over 50,562 BTC ($1 billion) to an address on the blockchain, paying a fee of just 2,513 Satoshis (the smallest denomination of a Bitcoin), equivalent to half a dollar for the pleasure. The unknown wallet address paid a tiny fraction (less than 0.0001%) of the total value transacted. Put simply, the user paid 50 cents to move double the GDP of the Bitcoin-friendly islands of Tonga. The billion-dollar transaction was processed in block 761374, at a transaction …
Bitcoin / Nov. 4, 2022
Santander UK limits crypto transactions for its customers
Multinational banking group Santander has placed a limit on all crypto transactions for its customers in the UK. The group cited cryptocurrency fraud warnings from regulators as the reason behind its decision. According an announcement on Nov. 3, the bank plans to protect its customers from the risks associated with investing in crypto assets, sharing that: “money held in customers’ crypto wallets is unlikely to be protected by the Financial Ombudsman Service and Financial Services Compensation Scheme if something goes wrong.” In an alleged effort to shield its customers from crypto-related risks, Santander UK said it believes that the best …
Blockchain / Nov. 3, 2022
Switzerland's financial regulator extends reporting requirements for crypto transactions
The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, or FINMA, has announced it will be extending an anti-money laundering ordinance which requires identity checks for reporting certain crypto transactions. In a Nov. 2 notice, the Switzerland financial regulator said it would enforce a threshold of 1,000 Swiss francs — roughly $997 at the time of publication — for transactions of virtual currencies to cash or “other anonymous means of payment.” According to FINMA, the regulator made the adjustment in accordance with the country’s Anti-Money Laundering Act and its government’s Anti-Money Laundering Ordinance. “FINMA received numerous responses concerning the specification of the threshold …
Regulation / Nov. 2, 2022
South African grocery giant ‘Pick n Pay’ intends to accept Bitcoin in all stores nationwide
Pick n Pay, one of South Africa’s largest supermarket chains, is set to allow its customers to pay for items in all its stores using Bitcoin. According to South African-based tech news outlet Tech Central, Pick N Pay is planning to roll out its cryptocurrency payments service to its stores nationwide in the coming months, after years of experimentation in select stores. The supermarket chain allegedly started experimenting with Bitcoin payments five years ago in Cape Town, but was stymied by expensive costs and long transaction wait times. The nationwide rollout will allow the store's customers to pay for items …
Adoption / Nov. 1, 2022
9 years after the first Bitcoin ATM, there are now 38,804 globally
On Oct. 29, 2013, a coffee shop in downtown Vancouver, Canada opened what is understood to be the world’s first publicly available Bitcoin (BTC) automatic teller machine (ATM) operated by Robocoin. The crypto ATM saw 348 transactions and $100,000 transacted in its first week of operation. As of Oct. 30, 2022 — nine years and one day on — Robocoin has ceased operations and the first crypto ATM has likely been removed or replaced, but crypto ATMs have continued to increase in number with 38,804 cryptocurrency ATMs in existence today, according to Coin ATM Radar. The global hub for crypto …
Adoption / Oct. 31, 2022
Freeway reveals key factors leading to platform withdrawal halt
Crypto staking platform Freeway pointed at the failure of one of its trading strategies, along with market conditions as the leading reason for halting user withdrawals earlier this week. The crypto yield platform on Oct. 23 announced it was halting various transactions relating to its high-yield “Supercharger” product, citing “unprecedented volatility” at the time, without giving any more details at the time, which saw its token price plummet. In a 22-part Twitter thread on Oct. 25, Freeway shed more light on the situation, revealing that it was “one of Freeway’s trading strategies” that “appears to have failed” and has “dramatically …
Blockchain / Oct. 26, 2022
How not to Bitcoin: User pays 1000X fee to send 4 BTC
Fat fingers? A Bitcoin (BTC) user spends over $200 to make a transaction, paying astronomically above the average fee. In a transaction that entered Bitcoin block 760,077, a user paid 1,136,000 Satoshis, (0.0136 BTC, $220.52) to move 3.8 BTC ($63,00). This extraordinarily high fee is a whopping 1,000 times the usual Bitcoin transaction fee, as at block height 760,077, the average transaction fee was roughly $0.20. Twitter user Bitcoin QnA first spotted the out-of-the-ordinary transaction, asking, “Y tho?”. The Bitcoin educator told Cointelegraph that "Ultimately we'll never know, [why they paid high], but there are a few possible answers." QnA …
Bitcoin / Oct. 24, 2022
BNB Chain confirms BSC halt due to 'potential exploit'
BNB Chain (BNB) the blockchain of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, was paused on Oct. 6 due to what it states is “irregular activity” on the network with the team having determined a potential exploit. The official Twitter account of the BNB Chain announced the temporary pause, soon after adding it had found a possible exploit. Binance provide an update that the blockchain was “under maintenance” suspending all deposits and withdrawals. To confirm, we have suspended BSC after having determined a potential exploit. All systems are now contained, and we are immediately investigating the potential vulnerability. We know the Community will assist …
Blockchain / Oct. 6, 2022
What is Bitcoin hash rate and why does it matter?
How does the hash rate affect Bitcoin price? The main drivers of Bitcoin’s price include computational power, mining profitability and network difficulty. Since miners are compensated in Bitcoin while incurring costs in local currencies, the hash rate follows the price. That said, the more computational power the Bitcoin network employs, the higher its value is. Moreover, rational miners are only willing to mine BTC if it is profitable, which implicitly means that any other cryptocurrency with no demand for it would have zero value and miners would redirect its resources elsewhere. Additionally, the network difficulty can be used as a …
Blockchain / Oct. 5, 2022
1inch wallet users get domain names with Unstoppable Domains partnership
Decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch has partnered with Unstoppable Domains to help users simplify cryptocurrency payments — a move the company says could strengthen wider adoption of DeFi products and services. Under the partnership, 1inch wallet users can enter “human-readable domain names” when sending crypto payments using Unstoppable’s naming service. This allows users to use customizable domain names instead of lengthy alphameric crypto wallet addresses. Like all Unstoppable Domains addresses, the wallet address will be minted on the blockchain as a nonfungible token (NFT), with no additional minting or renewal fees. Sergej Kunz, 1inch Network’s co-founder, said the Unstoppable Domains partnership …
Business / Oct. 4, 2022
Reversible transactions could mitigate crypto theft — Researchers
Stanford University researchers have come up with a prototype for “reversible transactions” on Ethereum, arguing it could be a solution to reduce the impact of crypto theft. In a Sept. 25 tweet, Stanford University blockchain researcher Kaili Wang shared a run down of the Ethereum-based reversible token idea, noting that at this stage it is not a finished concept but more of a “proposal to provoke discussion and even better solutions from the blockchain community,” noting: “The major hacks we've seen are undeniably thefts with strong evidence. If there was a way to reverse those thefts under such circumstances, our …
Blockchain / Sept. 26, 2022